Browsers

Chrome is 4∝

I remember Tuesday, September 9th, 2008.

I was sitting in my cool basement computer class learning a mixture of self taught PHP, JavaScript and class taught Java. I remember sitting there and the news being that Google released a browser. It just happened. Until that day, it was Firefox that reigned supreme. Now, I can’t even Firefox more than a couple minutes a day in the form a backup browser. Chrome welcomed the masses into the new age of browsers: constantly updating, fast and minimal interface distractions.

But it’s funny. Chrome is so prevelant. When Firefox was the browser, most people had no clue. Now people understand browsers to some degree, at least better than they ever did when Firefox was displacing Internet Explorer. Chrome even comes preinstalled on many PC laptops. That’s impressive right there.

So, thanks Chrome, and thanks Google, for making the Internet take a leap.

Browser Shortcuts Everyone Should Know

My dad and I were in the living room recently and he was using our TV computer.

While using Chrome, he kept mouse over to each little circular x to close each tab. I suggested he try a different shortcut. If you’re using a mouse with a scroll wheel, you can press the scroll wheel to close a tab. Just hover over a tab and click the middle-button and away the tab will go. He liked that since it’s tricky to be precise on the screen with the mouse when you’re ten feet away.

A little later, he accidentally closed a tab he wanted to get back. He was about to retrace his steps through a bunch of links but I suggested a different shortcut. Control + Shift + T will reopen the last tab closed, and continue to go through historically closed tabs too. He really liked that little trick.

Finally, he was typing an email up. Somehow, he got to the word “monotny” but it was underlined so he knew it was wrong (because that’s what Word does when words are wrong). I told him if he right clicks the underlined word in Chrome, it will bring up spelling suggestions from Chrome’s dictionary. I warned him that it’s not same dictionary as the one Google uses to fix keywords when searching. Instead of copy and pasting into a new tab, there was a better way. Like right clicking for built-in word corrections, he could look down the list for ‘Search Google for “monotny”‘. He thought that was pretty helpful too.

In short, my dad learned a lot today while sitting in the living room around the TV computer. That’s pretty good for a rainy day, isn’t it?

Keyboard Shortcut for Back on Chrome on Ubuntu

For some reason, the standard backspace does not function as a shortcut for going back a page like it does on Windows. While this is a replacement on Ubuntu, it certainly still works on Windows.

Try ALT + left-arrow for back and ALT + right-arrow for forward.

Chrome does not expose this shortcut in any visible way. Yet using left and right for back and forward makes a certain intuitive sense. It’s fast and easy, and it keeps your hands where they need to be – on the keyboard.

Install the Latest Google Chrome on Ubuntu

If Firefox is too slow for you now, Google Chrome might be worth it. I’ve used the Ubuntu Software Center since I started using Ubuntu last year to grab Chrome from the official open source channels, but lately it’s been outdated because Google releases Chrome at the speed of light.

Since the USC is slow to update you’ll end having to wait a much longer time to get updates. To fix this, skip the USC altogether and go straight to the source – Google. The Google Chrome website automatically detects the OS you are using so you have to do this on Ubuntu directly. Once there, do not click Download Google Chrome! Instead, look below it for Try the latest BETA version or
Get Google Chrome beta or developer releases which will ensure you always have a cutting edge more than up to date version of Chrome.

On the next page, you’ll see the Early Access Release Channels header. Scroll way down to Subscribing to a channel and then to Linux. Look for Beta Channel. You’ll need to pick either an x32 or an x64 version to download. Once you click the link, it’ll bring you to the beta release page and show you the Google Chrome terms of service. Accept and the download should start.

You’re downloading a .deb file so it is basically an installer. If it doesn’t open automatically upon finishing, just go to your downloads folder and click on it a few times. Once the installer is open, click Install Package and then enter your password if prompted.

Once it’s installed, you should take a look in the Applications menu: Applications > Internet > Google Chrome. You’ll see the new Google Chrome browser right there.
Another thing I’d like to point out is the difference between the icons. Looking at the icons – the bland blue washed icon is the open source Chromium while the colorful icon is the true Google Chrome.

Now you can use Google Chrome and it’ll be always mostly updated!

Finally, I was looking for a reliable way to transfer or import the Chromium profile into the newer Chrome. However, on Linux, it doesn’t appear to be very straight forward so I’ll leave that for another day.

Enjoy Google Chrome on Linux!

iPod Touch 4G Impressions

Today, I was able to get my first hands on time with the new iPod Touch released just two weeks ago. So while I don’t own one and can’t provide any in depth review, I do have a few first impressions.

It’s light. At Best Buy, they have the iPod Touch models all chained down to the charging station with some huge bulky black thing. That actually seems much heavier than the actual iPod Touch itself. When I held the iPhone 4 in June at the Apple Store, I was amazed at how heavy it felt despite being so thin. This time, I was surprised how light it really was. You can’t imagine the weight when the only reference point are point and shoot cameras and laptops. The size of course contributes to how light it is. Personally, I would have preferred it being heavier if it felt like the iPhone, which felt impossibly solid and heavy in my hand.

The cameras work. Chris Pirillo has actively tested the iPhone and iPod Touch side by side. The general conclusion is that the iPod Touch camera is weak sauce. I don’t know what they’re talking about though. My lovely LG Rumor 2 has a 2MP camera, and while it certainly is better than my dad’s 1.3MP camera, it’s not stellar. On the iPod Touch though, in good conditions (which are necessary for any phone camera), it took great pictures. Video recording was also nice but it was harder to test out in Best Buy. Even so, I could imagine doing small video reviews with that. Overall, the cameras are great. (I couldn’t test out Facetime because Best Buy doesn’t bother even putting the other models into the favorites list.)

It’s fast. I’ve had hands on time with every iPod Touch model to date. They were always faster than the previous and this new one is no exception either. At the Apple Table, the iPod Touch sat alone – no older models were around. However, after playing with the new one, I did find an older model in the store still as a functioning demo. It was slow like molasses compared to the new generation. The new iPod Touch opened Apps up fast and switched Apps fast. It was great.

It has mobile safari. Mobile Safari is boat loads better than Opera Mini. Opera Mini works on my Rumor 2, but it doesn’t run Java Script in any true fashion nor does it render pages in their true form. It bothers me that my own pages suck in Opera Mini. I want my device to preview my websites properly. Mission accomplished on an excellent mobile browser. Prior to playing with the iPod Touch, I was playing with the Magic Mouse attached to an iMac. I wrote my review of my recent Logitech Mouse and thought it was great. I did a two finger swipe left to go back a page in safari with the Magic Mouse. Fast forward to the iPod Touch, I thought the same motion would do something similar for Mobile Safari. Maybe I did it wrong?

Finally, it was simply fantastic. I’ve been waiting for a Mobile Browsing device. I don’t care for games or music. I need something light and small (e.g. not a laptop) to use a browser on to view things. I’d like to be able to Tweet occasionally and perhaps update the blog remotely. The iPod Touch 4G lives up to my expectations right now and when I have one, I am sure it will easily exceed them.

Backup Your Bookmarks

Backing up bookmarks is a good practice. As time goes on, you acculmate hundreds of bookmarks, maybe thousands. Counting bookmarks isn’t very hard either, it’s actually pretty fun knowing.

Firefox, Chrome and Safari

Well, backing up in Firefox is easy as long as they keep the Export as HTML feature in the Organize Bookmarks window, accessible from Bookmarks on the menubar. Just export your bookmarks as HTML.

Bookmarks

Google Chrome also works the same way, go to the Bookmarks Manager, Tools and finally export. Safari doesn’t follow Chrome’s lead, instead, you can find export bookmarks under File on the menubar.

Opera

Opera isn’t that much different but I felt like mentioning that Opera has so many different export/import options that it’s completely ridiculous. Simply go to Bookmarks, Manage Bookmarks, Tools, Save as HTML. Can it be any easier?

Internet Explorer

So then there’s the black duck. Or brown duck? Internet Explorer requires more effort. First, go favorites, then using the arrow next to the add to favorites button, then import/export. Following through annoying wizard, you’ll get a menu to export it as a file, do that, and you’ll get your file soon enough.

Conclusion

Now that you’ve saved all of your bookmarks, I suggest you email them all inside of a zip file to yourself. That way, they are saved forever. In addition to backing up your bookmarks, you can count them too.
As long as you exported your bookmarks as HTML, you can use this little javascript snippet.

javascript:alert("You have about " + document.getElementsByTagName("dt").length + " bookmarks.");

Happy bookmarking.

I instructed you to save your bookmarks as HTML. If your browser permits you to tag your bookmarks, you’ll probably loose those tags. If you save as JSON instead of HTML, those tags should be preserved.

Save The Developers is Back, Sort Of

Microsoft now has their own Internet Explorer 6 Countdown. It doesn’t offer an embeddable solution, but it certainly looks nice.

I was just searching around and I stumbled upon what seemed to be a ghost. I wrote about Save The Developers back in November of 2008. It seems that their website is back up. It looks significantly different, the super tiny javascript drop down is gone too.

Save The Developers is Back, Sort of

The site seems to be trying hard to promote other browsers but it certainly seems like a failed attempt. It seems like someone was basically reading a page from Wikipedia and pasting information right into the page along with google image results pertaining to the topic. There aren’t even any links to other browsers, not even to Firefox.

Keep in mind that the very same domain was redirecting to the Microsoft homepage of Internet Explorer not too long ago.

After all of this, I think it is safe to say Save The Developers is back, but it’s not definitely not at full strength, I don’t even know if anything it claims is trustworthy anymore. I think it has lost its steam, its edge that it used to have back in the old days. Therefore I think it is safe enough to offer the same message I ended with before.

Rest In Piece, Save the Developers.

Also since Save the Developers didn’t offer any browser links, let me offer these: Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari.

Decrement Loop Speed

One thing I’ve heard a couple of times in either a trac ticket or in a forum thread is that we should all switch over to a decrement-style loop. Why? Simply because it’s faster. (We’ll ignore the time it takes to realize that you can actually loop down to zero.)

I’ve wondered if it really made a difference so in two of my favorite languages, I did a couple of tests. In Java, I wrote a program to loop up and down one billion times and then take the average over ten runs of that. Javascript would only freeze when I tried to loop with a billion, so I used 100000 instead, but I raised the number of times I took the average. It’s hard to be fair when comparing, but in all honestly, we’re not comparing Java to Javascript, we’re comparing each to themselves.

Without further ado, let’s see some results!

Let’s talk about the Javascript version, first. It had the strangest results. What I found was that when I ran the tests in Firefox 3.5RC1, I normally got close results with decrement being slightly faster. When I racked up the number of trials, the difference between the averages went down, but even then, decrement was always slightly faster. But then I ran the tests in Google Chrome. I often found a 15 millisecond difference between the two averages. Sometimes decrement wasn’t the fastest, but it usually was, and by at least 15 milliseconds. So, in javascript, with a regular loop (nothing fancy about, no frameworks, no prototype mangling) took decrements about 28-32 milliseconds while increments took 28-56 milliseconds. Neat, huh?

Now, how about Java? Because I used significantly higher numbers, I thought the averages would be better. What I found was that, quite often, the averages were the same! Now, this wasn’t always true. Sometimes the decrement would be faster by about 25-50 milliseconds faster. Java wasn’t that interesting, but its safe to say that the decrement loop is slightly faster.

My results are dependant on my computer’s CPU, which is a dual core Athlon 2.40 GHz. The java tests are dependant on the JRE I’m running (6.14) and the javascript tests are dependant on Firefox 3.5RC1 and Chrome 3.0.139.

You can run my tests if you’d life, here’s the java and javascript tests.

Making Firefox Better with Addons

As a web developer, I understand that many websites need ads to support their income. However, as a user, I understand ads are plain annoying. My father always says he doesn’t mind and likes to at least see them to pretend he’s supporting those ad-supported sites.

Firefox has an amazing addon called AdBlock Plus. This plugin will make your browsing experience quite different. For example, on Facebook with most applications, you’ll see a column of ads along the right side of the screen. With AdBlock Plus enabled, that sidebar will go away. AdBlock Plus saves you bandwidth and makes your browsing experience better and faster.

There are two other add-ons that backup my Firefox installation and favorites. Xmarks makes my life easier at home and at school. Xmarks syncs my bookmarks and passwords between computers. Once you install it, it asks you to make an account and then uploads your bookmarks (and passwords if you’d like) to their secure servers where it keeps your bookmarks encrypted the entire time unless you allow it to use them for other services. The other add-on that makes my Firefox better is a mouth full, Firefox Environment Backup Extension, or FEBE. This add-on will backup just about every aspect of Firefox that you have set or change. I have it backup all of my other add-ons, their settings and also my customized Firefox settings (about:config level settings). It backs up everything at least once a day, I set it back up every 12 hours.

Finally, an add-on that is new to Firefox is new-tab (sadly there isn’t an official site yet). It doesn’t do anything that exciting however it does add some fancy tools to the regular blank tab. For instance, if you copy an address from a web page, and you use ctrl+t to open an new tab, you can easily run that address through Google Maps with one click with the new-tab add-on. It has other uses too, like having quick links to your frequently visited sites and more contextual actions.

Using only a couple add-ons makes Firefox more useful but keeps it fast. There is nothing worse than a useful browser that is slow.

Major Browser Icons

I needed the five major browser icons for a little project I was working on. It turns out that while people have made their own icon sets for most of the browsers, the browser vendors (Mozilla, Apple, Mircosoft, etc) don’t have much out there for people to use.

Firefox Icon

Luckily, Google Image Search to the rescue. I found, initially small icons from wikipedia. I soon found some other larger-sized versions that scale down better. The browser icons are handy to have, but they should be a lot easier to get a hold of and at a good quality/resolution. The background-color for the icons in the zip are white, but it might only appear that way since they’re all PNG so if you’re lucky, they could be transparent.

You can get the Major Icons Zip file there, all of which are 250px+. Enjoy.

Chrome issue with WordPress Login

Wordpress Login on Chrome

I use Chrome for blogging when I’m using one of my parent’s laptops so I don’t mess with their firefox sessions. I’ve noticed something odd though when I get to the login page in Chrome.

The log in box (where the two fields, username/password are) has rounded corners. For some odd reason, the rounded corners in Chrome don’t work out right and show blocky-black boxes.

I can’t really describe it better than the picture, but it reminds me of the lack of PNG support in IE6.

Updates

After some poking around the WordPress Trac, I found this ticket, that talks about those black boxes showing up in Chrome. It’s Chrome’s lack of fancy webkit features. The closed the ticket and marked it as wontfix.

Happy Browser

I was checking my Google Analytics today and I came across an interesting browser. Happy Browser. From Igoodsoft. I’m being honest, it is real.

Happy Browser Found in Google Analytics

I was surpised that someone made a browser called Happy Browser. I was so interested in the fact that someone used it, I had to look it up.

Here is what Igoodsoft (that’s really their name too) has to say about Happy Browser.

Happy Browser is a multifunctional web browser with integrated many utilities. Find anonymous, free or fastest proxy, check of proxy status, response time, country, proxy type (Transparent, Anonymous or High anonymity), import and export proxy, download proxy lists from web, IP to country, surf the web anonymously, block AD, execute script, network tools(Ping, Traceroute, Finger, Whois), external tools . Protect your privacy while staying online.
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So it’s a proxy browser. Pretty clever actually. People like to use that kind of thing when reading blogs at work, I believe. And also, of course, to protect their identity. But would you pay for a browser? I can get firefox, chrome, safari and opera for free. I get Internet Explorer bundled with Windows (which is like paying).

CNet has a single rating on it, but if CNet says it clean, there’s a good chance that it is.

It’s still interesting to see it in Google Analytics as a known browser.

Gmail opens to Internet Explorer 6

You know a browser is still alive when Google releases a special code base patch for one of it’s web-apps to allow support. Of course, you also know that there isn’t any thing worse than using Internet Explorer.

Today, Google announced that they will be pushing a code base patch that will allow Internet Explorer 6 to use Gmail. While that sounds great, I think, if anything, a little pop-up should still appear in the corner: upgrade to Internet Explorer 7 Today!

Google worked with Microsoft on this, so much in fact, an Internet Explorer patch has been released to address memory management issues in IE6 that were keeping Gmail off of the browser.

UA Profile Browser Results

UA Profiler is grown into BrowserScope. It’s must more comprehensive, it includes the original network tests and also Acid3, Selectors and Rich Text tests. According to my testing, Chrome 4 beat everyone.

On Ajaxian today, one of the posted articles is UA Profiler. This is a browser testing system. It was built to test features of browsers using javascript and css. For instance, one of the current tests is the connection maximum. Another example is caching of redirections (which I honestly never thought of before!) and data urls.

My results for the tests in the five (5!) browsers that I have here follow with their screen-shot.

Firefox 3

Firefox 3 UA Profile Result

One of the greatest inventions of URLS was the data url. It allows a base64 encoding of an image along with a type (like png or gif) to be embedded into html. This could save time, not space, in high traffic places. Firefox 3 handles it, and I know that Firefox 2 did as well.

This test result is odd because it isn’t inline with other tests from other people. Most people had 8/11 tests return success while I had only 7!

Internet Explorer (ie7) us profile

Internet Explorer 7

IE7 can’t stand up because it has less than half of the tests returning success. I think it is truly pathetic that Mircosoft, because they have Windows Update, does not force an upgrade. I understand the issues with system that rely on such bugs, but something really should be done. There could be hope in IE8.

Safari 3.1.2 (525.21)

Apple Safari UA Profile Results

Safari is a great browser performance wise and a leader in new css but, on Windows at least, it seems to me as a bit lacking. Firefox has handy features and it also has the ability for plugins. I don’t see such things with Safari.

These results aren’t remarkable in anyway nor are they bad. I just get a bit of a laugh out of the way the boxes are set touching each other.

Why no Link Prefetch, safari?

Opera UA Profile Results

Opera 9.51 (10081)

I loved the Opera update from 9.* to 9.5. The new UI, while many people did not like it, makes the browser unique and actually fancy compared to the slow-tabs bottom based tabs of Firefox/Safari/IE.

I think Opera, one of the four major browsers, should have more than 5 if it’s name isn’t Internet Explorer. I’m not sure how max connections are scored, but if that’s what made it 5 instead of 6, they need some fine tuning of their browser.

Chrome (0.2.149.2)

The results on Ajaxian’s quoted post showed that Chrome and Firefox 3 were the same. My tests didn’t give me a tie, Chrome won instead. Chrome is pretty impressive to come out of no where and instantly get a score similar to Firefox 3.

In Conclusion

There is room for expansion, clearly, in the list. I was thinking that we could test for simple things first, such as url length. I find that it’s not uniform across browsers and is a limit on bookmarklets. There are likely other imporvements/additons to the UA Profile system, I can’t wait to see them!

Chrome versus Firefox via Slickspeed

One of my favorite things to do to a browser when a new version is released is to run Slickspeed on it. Slickspeed was made by the great people who made Mootools. Since release, it has been changed, by adding more javascript libraries and a greater real world selector set. I simply used the one from their website.

The results are interesting. Mootools, at one time, was touted as the fastest selector engine. That isn’t true as of Firefox 3 or Chrome on release day. (We’re going to refer to the Chrome on 2008-9-2 as IR, Initial Release. So Chrome IR is Chrome – Initial Release.)

Here is the result. Dojo v1.1.1 was the fastest in Firefox 3, but jQuery 1.2.6 was the fastestÃ‚Â in Chrome.

The slowest in browsers were the YUI selector library. The other interesting data, from my limited testing, was that Prototype v1.6.0.2 got slower by about 60 milliseconds.Ã‚Â

I recorded my data here, and you can also view my fancy screenshot. The dark blue is the fastest in the set, the pink-ish color is the slowest and the greens are the middle men.

Results of FF3 and Chrome on release version

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I wish someone, if possible, would run Slickspeed in Internet Explorer 8 a bunch of times.